Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Less than 24 hours after our last post we found out that Lai has a family! We were in shock and in awe of how faithful God is to the fatherless. We thought it would be hard to advocate for him, but God had different plans in mind. A family saw his file and quickly said yes. We are so thankful that he has a family and have just found out that his family will be hosting him over Christmas. How cool is that?! There were 7 kids from China that were not chosen to be hosted so we took another look at the profiles and felt led to Hui. He is a healthy 13 year old boy who loves basketball. He is nervous about coming, but I hope he quickly feels comfortable once he is here.

Because Hui is 13 years old already, he has less than a year for a family to say yes and get the adoption process completed. Please, please be in prayer that his family finds him. We are really looking forward to him coming.

Please also pray that churches and/or organizations step up and say yes and allow us to come and advocate for him.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

This story is something that has been culminating in my head
and heart for years, but recently I have felt the urge to put it down in
writing.We have many exciting and scary
things happening in our life right now.Things that have been dreams of ours for years, things that are
requiring a complete leap of faith, things that are so unsure and scary yet very
exciting as well.

It all began for me when I was around 14 years old.Growing up, we only had a few TV
stations.One night I watched this TV
program about orphans in Romania.I am
not even sure what program it was, but that night, as I watched these kids, my
heart ached for these orphans. I was
stricken by the conditions for orphans in Romania and I think it was the first
time that I really understood that there were children in the world that would
grow up without an earthly father and mother.This seemed unimaginable to me.My parents were divorced, but I knew I not only had a mom and dad, but I
had a stepdad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, and cousins who loved me
unconditionally.If I wanted someone to
tuck me in at night, I had someone.If I
wanted a kiss or hug, I could have one at any time.And if I just wanted to talk to one of my
parents, they were there.As I watched
that TV program that night, my heart changed for the orphan child and I knew
the path of my life would change.I had
no idea what I would do when I grew up, had no idea who I would marry, but I
KNEW I would adopt children someday.

Fast forward several years, Michael and I are engaged and
talking about our future together.Part
of that future included children.We
knew we wanted to have children and we knew adoption would be part of our family.The Lord ended up blessing us with two
amazing boys.Aidan and Keenan were healthy,
handsome, and they had amazing little personalities.But not long after Keenan was born, we
decided that our family was not done yet and we started to look into
adoption.After waiting 2 ½ years from
the time we started filling out the first piece of paperwork, we brought
Isabella home from China.Our life was again,
forever changed.Then once again, in February
2013, we were blessed to bring home Elijah, our never ending little ball of
Joy!Through it all, God has pushed us,
challenged us, stretched us, but above all, he has blessed us.

From the time Aidan was born, I have always wanted to stay
at home with the kids and we have recently been able to make that happen.A little over a year ago, we started a new
business where we buy houses that need some major help, fix them up and then
sell them.This business is to serve two
purposes.One, to allow me to stay at
home with the kids.And two, to give us
the means to help support and advocate for adoption.Part of the proceeds from each of the homes
goes to help orphans.This is another
dream of mine … to advocate and help the orphan child.We know how much adoption can cost, so our
hope is to help as many families in the adoption process as we can.We also want to sponsor children who have no
hope for adoption.The business name is
Chosen Properties because we believe each child is chosen to be one of God’s
children.This business is both exciting
and scary.It has been a HUGE leap of
faith … and we have seen so many blessings through this leap.

One of those blessings was being able to lead a mission team
to Mexico this summer, to work with the orphans in Monterrey.Aidan went on the trip as well, and it was
great to be able to share this experience together.Each person in our group was paired up with a
child.Our sole purpose for the week was
to play and be with the kids.These
children live in a children’s home, and while they try to make it as much like
a home as possible, it is an institution.We played games, ate good food together, went swimming, took the kids to
a safari and went to church with them.Our visit allowed all of these things to happen.I recently received a drawing from the sweet
little girl that I spent the week with.We have been asked not to share pictures of their faces to help protect
their privacy, but I was able to get creative with some of the pics.Our church is planning to send another team
again next year and I think Michael will be going this time.

I just recently completed the courses and passed the exam to
obtain my real estate license. We hope
this will help us with both buying and selling our properties.Plus, I LOVE to look at homes, see their
potential and I hope to be able to help others do the same.It has been so neat to see how God has worked
through the homes we have bought and sold already.We have been able to help several families
with their adoption expenses and at the same time we have seen buyer’s
excitement about their new home.We have
so many hopes and dreams and pray that with the Lord’s help, we are able to see
more children come home to families, see more children get sponsorship, and see
more people understand the needs and open up their hearts and homes to the
orphan child.

We know what adoption can mean for a child.We have seen the transformation first
hand.Our sweet boy was so malnourished,
weak and withdrawn when we met him.He
is now the happiest little guy who runs and jumps and is just all boy.We have seen friends adopt and have seen the
light enter into a child’s eyes for the first time.There are unknowns, but when aren’t
there?

We believe that the Bible calls us all to care for the
orphan child (James 1:27).There are so
many ways to do so.One that has been
recently placed on our hearts is through an orphan hosting program.We have decided to host a child from China for
a month over the Christmas break.The child
we are going to sponsor is 12 years old, and his name is Lai.He is listed as healthy and is available for
adoption through CCAI (www.ccaifamily.org),
the agency who helped us bring Eli home.You can go to the website to see more photos and a brief synopsis.He sounds like he is a great kid and we can’t
wait to spend some time with him.Our
hope and prayer is that we can help advocate for him and that his forever family
will find him before he ages out at the age of 14.No child should be without a family and no 14
year old should have to be told their time at an orphanage is up. We will be speaking at churches and advocating
for him in the months leading up to his arrival and while he is here.If you know anyone who may be interested in
adoption or a church or organization that may be open to us coming to share
about this sweet boy, please let us know.CCAI has even more information and you can request to see his file.Statistics show that children this age have
almost no chance at adoption through the normal channels, but if they are
hosted and people are able to meet them, the chances for adoption go up to
70%.That’s HUGE!We are praying for Lai’s forever family,
praying they will find him, and that he will be Chosen!

God has called us to care for the orphans and the widows
(Isaiah 1:17).For us, this is a personal
commandment, something that God has woven into our hearts.There is not a day that goes by that I am not
grateful for the children that God has placed into our lives.While we can’t adopt all of the orphaned
children in the world, we can make a difference for 1, 2, 3 or more.Please join us in prayer as we host Lai.Praying that his family will find him,
praying that his visit will be a good one for him (and us), and mostly, praying
that one day there won’t be any orphans in the world.It might seem like an impossible task, but
with God, all things are possible!

The Fam

Welcome

Welcome to our blog. We are the Garland family. Michael, Heather, Aidan (12), Keenan (9), Isabella (8) and Eli (3). We brought Isabella home in August of 2009, and Eli home in February 2013. We hope you enjoy our journey as a family of 6!

Aidan

Keenan

Bella

Eli

Our four blessings

Timeline

February 15: Apply to CCAI;
February 16: Apply to FAC (homestudy agency);
May 24: Received Final Homestudy;
May 25: Sent I800A application to USCIS;
July 11: USCIS Approval;
July 20: DTC;
July 24: LID;
August 9: LOI submitted to China, Eli's file locked!!;
August 17: Pre-approval from China;
September 19: Out of Translation;
November 1: LOA;
November 21: USCIS Provisional 800 Approval;
December 18: Article 5 issued;
January 9: Travel Approval!;
January 21: Eli in our arms forever!!